It is great relief that I check out of the hotel where I
have spent 72 hours killing time. The streets here are paved with plastic, the
remains of the local market still hang on their corners, piles of waste picked
through by children no older than three. The town devoid of distractions, lest
that be eateries serving the same rehash of reheated Nasi Goreng, or the
karaoke bars where the silent orchestra plays to a silent crowd. But why would
I want to leave my air-conditioned cell, when even the air outside is filled
with fug? The cocktail of leftover market produce, made pungent with ever-present
humdrum humidity, is complimented by a forest fire haze. Half of Indonesia, it
would seem, has been on fire since 3 months ago, and now the air is saturated
with the memory of Kalimantan’s dwindling forests and peatlands.
The minivan takes me back county, back to basics and back in
time. The never ending curtain call of palm oil plantations are slowly but
surely replaced by rising green giants. The sight of these sentinels on the
fringe of the forests elicits contrasting sensations within my chest. Somewhere
close to my heart I feel hope. Hope, that my months ahead will consist of more
than respiratory problems and satellite TV consumer culture. Hope that wild
nature can continue to exist, and elicit and enrapture. But at the same time a
duller and mounting tensing of what feels like my intestines also signals a
yellow belly of fear. Fear because over the coming months I am going to have to
climb up some 45 m into the canopies of those trees if I am to achieve the aims
which have sent me back to the tropical rainforest that I had left behind a
year ago.
A year into my PhD and the time has come to step up, and
stand of the shoulders of giants in more ways than one. Hiding in a library, a
lab and even a botanic garden have all served their purpose, but paper, pyrex
and glass can only get you so far.
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